Hai Moldova! April 16th clean up day.

Today, the school that I work at, participated in a clean up that happened throughout all of Moldova. When I first heard about this event I was extremely happy. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived in Moldova was the amount of trash that litters the streets. There is also a lack of trash cans around, so if there is no place to put your trash, it just goes on the ground. Also, coming from California, where there are extreme littering fines and most people do such a good job at recycling and being green anyways, it was hard for me to get used to.



The director of the school and I

 I first heard about this clean up day at a meeting that we had in the capital about grant writing. My school director was with me and also heard about this event and I was shocked when I saw a poster hanging up at my school saying that we were going to participate in this event. Of course, I wanted to, but I thought I was going to have to ask my school director for permission to participate but she went out and signed up by herself. This made me proud.

Carolina and Valeria (my host sister)

We received around 150 sets of suits for the students to wear, which included a face mask, protective goggles, and trash bags. They ABSOLUTELY loved the suits. They thought it was so cool to be able to wear this suit that looked like something out of the movie Outbreak and took tons of pictures dressed in it.


We first did a clean up day on April 13th, which confused me since the clean up day was scheduled for April 16th. When I asked why we were doing it early, I didn't receive a clear answer. I showed up to school on wednesday, ready to teach my classes and was told that we weren't going to be having classes, we were going to do the clean up. It was raining all day long, but the students and teachers went out into the village and cleaned up a lot of trash. When I talked to my partner teacher about why she thought we did it earlier than the scheduled day, she said that they doubted the students would have showed up on a saturday to clean. If you ask me for my opinion, I think it is the teachers who didn't want to show up on a saturday.....and I am pretty sure I was correct since we then held the second clean up day today, saturday, the director of the school, one other teacher and I were the only staff there. That is one  thing I am having a hard time with here, the lack of participation from teachers for events outside of school time. I have heard teachers say that they are just too tired to show up to school for events after school and/or on weekends and that they don't get paid to be there, so why come. I am extremely grateful to that one teacher who did come out today, my school director for deciding to still participate today, and of course to all the students who DID show up on a weekend. The sun was out today, and since it has been raining off and on for the past 2 weeks, it was a perfect day to be outside.

On a side note, one thing that confused me though was this....the clean up was focused on an area in the village by a creek. I understand that trash should  not be by water and of course believe that cleaning up around the creek was needed, but I feel that other places around the village were neglected during our clean up. Students walked right past trash that littered the school campus and headed out to clean up the area by the creek. I stopped a few of them and said that there was a lot of trash on the school campus, and we should clean it up. They saw me doing this and participated for a few minutes, but then headed down to the creek. I feel that their definition of trash was large plastic/glass bottles, or other items that are big. Around the school, there were tons of ice cream wrappers, chip bags, candy wrappers and paper that they didn't seem to think needed to picked up. I also noticed some students discarding the items they were wearing when they were finished and leaving it on the ground. This made me furious. If you just spent 3 hours outside cleaning up trash, why on earth would you want to create more? I am coming to understand that this is something that they are used to and is a learned behavior and they don't really understand the concept of putting trash into a trash can, especially if there isn't one around.

This is an area that I would love to work on while I am here in Moldova. I would love to install trash cans around my village and the school and teach the students that throwing trash on the ground is not good for the environment, and it is not frumos (beautiful). I believe today's clean up was an awesome success but I would like to get a club started at school or some type of group organized where we could do monthly clean ups, or something on a regular basis. I just have to remind myself that it will take time, change doesn't come easily or overnight, but today was a step in the right direction.

*I will add pictures later

Doamna profesoara, va rog!

My partner teacher was out all week last week due to illness and I think it is a nice break sometimes when I get to teach bymyself....but sometimes it can be difficult. So on Wednesday last week, I was sitting at my desk getting stuff ready for class during the 10 minute break in between classes and one of my 11th form students comes up to me asking me for my permission to miss class. It's my experience here that if a student asks a teacher to miss class, for whatever reason and gets approval, they will not be marked as absent. No "a" will be written in the catalog for that day, they just won't receive a grade for that day....and here in Moldova, not every student recieves a grade everday. So she asks me if she can be absent and I ask her why. Sometimes if students say they are feeling sick or need to go home for whatever reason, my partner teacher will let them go.....so I figured I would give this a try. I would still put an "a" in the catalog but I wanted to hear her excuse/reason.

She then told me her reason was because she needed to go to the piaţa (outdoor market) to buy some shoes. I was kind of in shock, talk about being truthful...I mean, she could have said she was feeling sick and I would have never known she went to buy shoes so I will give her props for her honesty. I then ask her why she cannot buy the shoes on the weekend and she said that she goes to another village on the weekends to be with her mom and they do not have a piaţa. I tell her no, that she cannot miss class but then she puts her hands together like she is praying and begs me, saying, "Doamna profesoara, va rog!!" (Please teacher!) She continues to beg and I finally say to her in Romanian, "if buying shoes is more important to you than your education, go!" She left the classroom. A few minutes later the bell rang and she returned. I was really proud ....because maybe my words meant something or made an impression on her. I totally expected it to backfire and for her to skip class...but she didn't.

I later heard her talking to her friend saying that she could just go during geography class....so my victory was short lived....but at least she stayed for English. :)

Found this interesting

Profile

Cities

I've been to 19 cities in 17 countries

Gecko is an explorer that:

likes popular destinations

likes a bug-free bed and hot showers

likes a little risk

Travel cred: great

I rank in the top...

3% most cities visited - Singapore

4% most cities visited - South Korea

6% most cities visited - United Arab Emirates

Asia

China: Beijing

China: Xinzhuang

Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur

Singapore: Singapore

South Korea: Seoul

Thailand: Bangkok

Turkey: Istanbul

Europe

Czech Republic: Prague

France: Paris

Ireland: Dublin

Italy: Rome

Netherlands: Amsterdam

Russia: Moscow

Spain: Barcelona

Spain: Madrid

United Kingdom: London

Middle East

United Arab Emirates: Dubai

North America

Canada: Toronto

United States: New York

 Get your own widget

GeckoGo 

A cause I feel very powerful about and was involved with back home. Please donate if you can.

Valentine's Dance

Poster announcing the event at school

I thought I should probably get around to posting about the Valentine’s dance that I threw at my school while it’s still February, so here it goes. I originally wanted to do a Halloween dance at my school last year but with less than 2 months under my belt at school I didn’t get around to it. By February, I felt that it was time. I begin by telling my partner teacher at school about my idea. She originally thought it would be an English event, but I told her that wasn’t necessary. I wanted to incorporate everyone at school, whether they were learning French or English and the event would be held in Romanian. With that figured out, we talked to the director at my school and she gave us the green light.

English Club kids getting crafty making decorations

Finished product

Now, it came as a shock to me that schools here don’t regularly throw dances for the students because back home we always had dances in junior high and high school. I just wanted something fun for the students at school to attend and we all know that Moldovans love to dance. So with this idea being new to my partner, I explained to her that I wanted to serve refreshments and a light snack at the dance….you get thirsty after dancing and some munchies are always appreciated. She then asked me how we would pay for the food and drinks that we were to serve and I told her that I could front the money and then if we charged an admission (5 lei, around 50cents) it would pay for the food, drinks and decorations. My partner was sure that no one would attend the dance if we charged an admission but I kept a positive outlook.

Now back home, I would just drive on over to Party City to buy some Valentine’s decorations, you know…. balloons, streamers, signs, etc. but being here in Moldova I had no clue where to go. I luckily was able to find red and white balloons at a store called Metro (think Costco) and my English Club kids were more than happy to help me make decorations. In my raion, my partner introduced me to a store that sells drinks, snacks and supplies in bulk to people who own small magazines (small stores). There we bought 300 cups, bags of candy, a box of pretzels and liters of soda at a really good price. Now came the hard part….back home I would just take my purchased items in a shopping cart out to my car and drive home, but I do not have those luxuries here in Moldova. My partner and I had to carry punga bags filled with 20 liters of soda in hand from the store to the raion center. We would carry the bags for as long as we would, which seemed forever but in actuality was like 15 steps and then put the bags down to rest. It was so funny. Once we got to the raion center, I was able to get a cab home with all the items but then had to carry all the goods from the paved road that leads to my house, onto the dirt road that the taxis don’t drive on because it is such a bad road. Fun! It was all worth it though…sore back and all.

Inga (5th form) showing off her prize

My super cute, super yummy, heart shaped cookies

I made little goody bags for the students that participated in games we held during the dance. The goody bags were brown lunch bags that my mom sent me filled that I filled with candy, a caiet (small notebook for school), a pen and some stickers from my collection Everyone who entered the dance got a small heart shaped piece of paper with a number on it and then at different times during the dance a number was called and the winner received baked goods that I made, either a plate of cupcakes or a plate of heart shaped cookies. My host mom also helped me in popping bag upon bag full of popcorn to serve along with the pretzels.

snack table-pretzels, popcorn and candy

drinks

So the day of the dance came and I went to the gym to decorate and started pumping some 200 balloons. When school got out, I was accompanied by some of the 8th form girls who helped get the gym ready. I set up a backdrop for pictures which I craftily made out of my bed sheet and got nervous while the 4 o’clock hour came upon us. We split up the dance into 2 parts, the first dance was from 4pm-6pm and was for grades 5-8 and the second dance was from 6:30pm-9pm and was for grades 9-12. It was a long day but such a fun one. The dance was a success and we had around 180 students show up with smiles on their faces and I hope to continue the dance next year.

You are my life

They loved the backdrop



Strike a pose



Vogue

Notice my toothy smile compared to the others

Pics

                                                                My first little snowflake

Some more snowflakes

My host sister Valeria on the steps of the house

Walking to school

Me walking back from the store during break

The hill down

English Club girls outside of school

                                              The finished product of my snowflake tutorial

Celebrating 6 months in Moldova-dinner at Tulip, a Thai restaurant 12.10.12



Winter Wonderland

Winter is here in Moldova….well, technically winter starts on Tuesday but it started to snow here on December 1st. How appropriate is that? Rewind back to the 1st...I woke up for breakfast at 7am and went to the kitchen, which is under the house (think basement) so I have to walk outside of the house to get to it…anyways…it was cold so I hurried in the warm kitchen to eat my oatmeal with raisins and tea and then when I left to go back in the house and it  had started to snow! It was so pretty. It was only a little bit snow, but I don’t think I had ever had snow fall from the sky and land on me. I usually have just seen it on the ground already after it fell. Make sense? Needless to say, I was excited! I ran in to get my camera and took a pic of my first snowflake. This also shocked me too…because I could make out the shape of the snowflake…like the ones you cut out of paper as a kid.


So I have obviously never lived in snow before…I have visited Lake Tahoe before and seen the snow, and maybe stayed in cabin for the weekend…but never lived in the snow. It is so beautiful….but cold. Everything looks like a Christmas card out here…the big open fields, covered in a thick blanket of sparkling white snow. And then when I see the horse carts/sleighs on the streets and it’s perfect!

I made snowflakes with my English Club kids and taught them a wide vocabulary of Christmas words, which was fun because when I worked at an elementary school back in CA we weren’t allowed to talk about Christmas….so I’m happy I can talk all I want about Christmas here in Moldova. We even watched Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer but I’m not sure how much they understood because I wasn’t able to find Romanian subtitles and just had English ones.

I finally got my pair of Sorel boots that I ordered online and had sent home to me in CA. (Thanks Stacy for sending them to me!) They are really nice and warm and prefect for the snow. I haven’t broke down and bought a pair of leather boot like a true Moldoveanca. I just don’t see how walking in the snow in leather boots, usually with heels, makes sense. Knowing me, I probably would fall down and break my arm if I was wearing those type of boots…so I will have to deal with not being “frumos” (beautiful). Plus…I’m not a big fan of leather…and don’t see a need in buying animal skin products.

So anyways, there is a huge hill that I have to climb to make it to work but it only takes about 8 minutes to get there…but it’s pretty steep. I put on all these layers every morning and bundle up to make my snowy trek to school and by the time I get there, I am hot. I get to school and take off the majority of my layers off because I’m sweating now and then just get cold later. It’s a funny game that my body likes to play with me, and all I can hear is Katie Perry playing in my head…”cause you’re hot then you’re cold…”

So, so far, so good. I have only fell once, knock on wood. Of course it was coming down the steep hill home after school. I’m not sure who saw me, but I quickly got up and pretended like nothing happened. I have heard from other volunteers that have fallen and by the time they get home, their host family has already heard about their spill….because word spreads quick in a village. I wasn’t wearing my Yak Trax either…so I probably deserved it. Peace Corps gives us these cool little things to put over our shoes that provide traction on ice and snow but when I leave school, there really isn’t a place for me to sit down and put these things on so I figure I’ll be okay without them…until I fall. Then, if it is warmer one day out than the previous, the snow starts to melt and then it will just freeze over the next cold day and that makes for ice, which is not a clumsy gal’s friend. It’s cute though because the kids at school play on the ice and run and slide on it during their breakds from class while I try to avoid it at all costs.

They tell me it will get colder in January, which I can’t even fathom right now because it’s pretty damn cold to me know. If it stayed like this…I think I could handle it…but we shall see what January has in store for me. All I know is that there is one week left of school before winter break and I'm not sure who's more excited....me or the kids? Liz and I leave for Turkey on the 28th and will be back on Jan. 5th just in time to celebrate orthodox Christmas here on the 7th. My host mom told me that she wants to celebrate the 25th of December as well, since I am living with them, which I thought was really nice of her. So Feliz Navidad and Merry Christmas to all my loved ones,

Love, Neet